El Pais: Lo que Darwin no sabía "What Darwin Didn't Know"

By Pim van Meurs

Posted March 13, 2008

We learn at the Discovery Institute Blog about a recent lecture tour in Spain by ID creationists

Over an eight day period last January, Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity (aka DoctorsDoubtingDarwin.com, a rapidly growing, 277-member, physician group from 17 countries) sponsored a lecture tour in Barcelona, Malaga, Madrid, Leon and Vigo. It was titled "Lo Que Darwin No Sabía," or "What Darwin Didn't Know." Tom Woodward, Ph.D. (author of Doubts About Darwin and Darwin Strikes Back) and myself (author of What Darwin Didn't Know and Billions of Missing Links) lectured on eight occasions to exceptionally large audiences. Santiago Escuain was our translator extraordinaire. Rich Akin, the CEO of PSSI, put in enormous hours into making this trip a huge success.

El Pais reports on the 'successful' Spain Tour of 'Lo que Darwin no sabía'. Of course, the DI does admit later on that the success was limited.

I apologize for the translation which has been performed with the assistance of online translation services.

"We are not creationists, we simply believe that in light of current scientific, it is a mockary that further underpinned that the theory of evolution is the answer to the origin and development of life on our planet", says Antonio Martinez, ophthalmologist, and the main representative of PSSI in Spain.

However, if you inquire about other associations or agencies that support this message in Spain, one is refered to the website of Evangelical Service Documentation and Information (Sedin), in whose home appears a direct link to the Coordinator Creacionista.

Yes, funny how ID invariable traces back to creationism, even though they deny the obvious.

Faced with the criticism they have received by the universities to accommodate an act that many scientists believe contrary to the whole academic standard, the dean of the Faculty of Biology at the University of Leon, Jose Carlos Pena Alvarez, issued a statement early in the morning.

"Anyone who knows me knows my beliefs evolutionists," explains Pena Alvarez, "but also my liberal ideas, which lead me to allow and address any debate on any subject and more about something that is central to the conception of biology".

In the afternoon, and after receiving another announcement of strong condemnation and opposition from the Spanish Society for Evolutionary Biology (SESBE), signed by its chairman Manuel Soler, the same Dean said he was going to consult with the Faculty Council: "As reconsideraré rule, however, the opportunity to hold the conference. "

In ¿Desciende el hombre del mono? "Does man descend from monkeys?" we hear more details from Manuel Soler, a professor of Animal Biology at the University of Grenada and president of the Spanish Society for Evolutionary Biology.

During the month of January was organized in Spain a cycle of conferences under the title What Darwin did not know, has become the first major offensive launched by the ultra-religious groups seeking Americans, by the criticism of Evolutionary Theory, extend the idea that Creationism (in recent times called Intelligent Design, DI) can be considered a scientific theory.

The "conference" are not such, and even less science; they are propaganda acts perfectly designed to persuade an audience unawares and deep religious convictions often fitting the profile of most attendees.

One of the strategies followed usually by biblical fundamentalists in the organization of propaganda is to attempt to have these acts taught at universities or other institutions of scientific nature, in this way, be able to claim the status of "scientific".

However, since the Spanish Society for Evolutionary Biology (http://www.sesbe.org) wrote to the academic authorities for making them see that it was a fraud (which is trying to pass an idea of strong religious content for a theory in the field of experimental science) and the conferences were cancelled.